The prosecution on Tuesday argued that convict Mustafa Dossa be given the death penalty for his role in the 1993 Mumbai blasts. A special TADA court was hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence of punishment for the six convicts in the case.

Special CBI counsel Deepak Salvi, had said that he would seek extreme punishment for all the six convicts in the case. “While deciding on the punishment in this case, the court needs keep two numbers in mind… that 257 persons died in the blasts and nearly 713 citizens were brutally injured. These numbers are sufficient to display the brutality caused by the blasts. The men who caused the blast had brought 1500 kg of RDX (an explosive substance). It would have destroyed the entire city of Mumbai,” Salvi had said in court on June 22.

The TADA court had convicted six people – Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Feroz Abdul Rashid Khan, Taher Merchant, Karimulla Khan and Riyaz Siddiqui – in the case on June 16 and acquitted Abdul Qayyum Sheikh who was then released from Arthur Road jail on June 17.

The 12 successive explosions on March 12, 1993 in Mumbai, then Bombay, had rocked different places in the city between 1.30 pm and 3.40 pm.